Do Animals Use Light to Go to Deeper or Shallow Water?

Peabody Charter School
Teacher: Claire Poissonniez
Scientists: Gerick Bergsma and Robin Pelc

Introduction:
In the introduction we will be talking about animals that come from the shallow and the deep. Light is absorbed by water which makes the deep water blue and the shallow red. There is a purple and red sea urchin, a bat star, and turban snails. We will test the animals to see if they use the color of light.

Our Question:
Do animals use the color of light to find different depths?

Hypothesis:
Shallow water animals will move toward red light (the shallower water). Deep water animals will move toward the blue light (the deepest part).

Materials:
Red and blue cellophane
Deep water and shallow water sea animals
Plastic tubs
Sea water

Results:
The red urchin went to the red (shallow water) 9 times and to the blue (deep water) 5 times, so the red urchin went mostly to shallow waters and less times to the deep water. The purple urchin went to shallow waters 5 times and to deep water 6 times, so the purple went in the deep water one more time than the shallow water. The bat star went to shallow waters 4 times, while it went to the deep water 5 times, so the bat star went to the deep a little more than to the shallow. Finally, the turban snails went to shallow water 24 times and to the deep 4 times, so the turban snails went to the shallow water a lot, but only a little to the deep.

Conclusion:
In conclusion, we have found that turban snails like to use the light to go to the shallow waters. We also have found that the bat seastar, the red urchin and the purple urchin go to either side equally. Therefore they do not use the light.